UNDERWEAR FOR THE FAT

UNDERWEAR FOR THE FAT

(Note - this takes place in Malaysia).

The dreaded time had arrived.  The amount of skin coverage had shrunk as the holes grew.  The laundry ladies were starting to give me odd looks.  Time at last to attempt to purchase underwear.

In many ways, it is like coming from the land of giants and trying to find clothing.  It is odd because sometimes you see a fat Asian.  You want to shake him.  Partially to see the wobble, sure, but also to demand to know where he shops.  "Hey - you're fat - I'm fat - we're like brothers!"  Not winning hearts and minds.

It's a bit like searching for the grail.

Asia may be said to be back in the 1990's, at least as far as shopping malls go.  Unlike in the USA, shopping malls are still a very big deal here in Asia.  So, I found a shopping mall.

After searching the wrong floor (0, 1, 2 here in Asia as in most of the world as opposed to 1, 2, 3 in the USA because we love doing shit differently) I found the wrong store but it had underwear.

In countries that have no return policy (you bought it, now fuck off) it is best to bring what you want to buy.  They may stretch the truth - along with the underwear - to make a sale.

Pulling my clean, laundered underwear out of the bag was a lot like presenting them with a live snake.

Horror and revulsion.

After making them remove the new one from the package so I could hold up mine and compare size I wondered if I should have brought an oxygen tank to let them get a few hits.

It was great fun.

Unusually, I found underwear.  They were labeled 'jumbo'.  If a fat person feels bad, they can eat them feelings away with ice cream.

Yum.

In the USA, the size would have been XL or XXL.  Here, it is 5XL because 'You are fat."

I was excited to find them.

In fact, I was so excited to find them, I thought "Better get two two packs."

Nope.  They have only one.

The amount of material used to make this single two pack of underwear is so great that somewhere a circus had to give up it's tent.

So you only get one.

No, there is no back room for them to go to and pretend to search while bitching to fellow workers about how much they hate customers.  They looked at that shelf, there seem to be no more.

Take your nasty underwear and go.

Eventually, I found the store I'd been directed to.  Since the luck I was displaying might have caused me to win a lottery - ...  No.  They didn't have anything close to my size.

A usual tactic when they don't have something you want is to offer you something small that you can't use.

"We don't have 5XL but we do have M?"

Sure - let me lose fifty kilos and jump right into that.

"Shoes?  You want size forty six?  We have forty four!"

Sure - let me shrink my feet and that will be fine.

"OK!"

Yes, they thought I was going to buy the shoes.  I shook my head and left.

Help support all education systems.  Living in a world with a lot of dumb-asses can be stressful.

But hey, I got some underwear.

Pretty psyched.



BOOK REVIEW

"Dead of the Night" by M.R. Forbes

It's always baffled me as to why someone would want to use the same fucking title as a bunch of other people.  Fortunately, the rest of the book is more creative than the title that has been reused bunches in the last decade.

The protagonist is an anti-hero.  Not nearly so annoying as Thomas Covenant fortunately.  Yeah, I'm still pissed at the author of that crap.  Anyway, this guy is an asshole.  He is also a necromancer who is scared of death.  (After you read the entire book, you will wonder 'did he mean that in two or three different ways?  Yes.  Yes I did.)

Overall, I'd put it at a 5/10.  It's bubble gum for the brain.  The one idea (mostly unexplored) I found most interesting is that it takes an urban fantasy world and mixes it with a world in which you can go into a virtual world.  It's just kind of on the side but I could see how it might bring back memories of the Shadowrun tabletop RPG.  Not sure.  There only seem to be two books right now for audio so I will check out the next in the series.

THAILAND BACK TO MALAYSIA

THAILAND BACK TO MALAYSIA

I should have booked the train ticket earlier.  My fault came about in not keeping a close eye on Chinese New Year.

They go nuts for it in Asia - for some reason.  I suspect it's because their companies give them time off work.  Why this is celebrated outside of China is something I really don't understand.  Why it still exists in these modern times, also something I don't understand.

There are lots of things I really don't get.  But as David Lopan says...


So I booked the sleeper train for a twelve hour fun ride south.  The problem was there were only four spaces in the next several days available.  And they were all top bunks.

Asking me to get climb the narrow ladder into something roughly the size of a coffin and squirm my way in there is almost cruel.  But, it was that or nothing.  Since my visa only had a couple days left on it, I opted for attempting to fill the space allotted to a small Asian person.

It was nightmarish.

At my age and with my various problems, the thing I love to do more than anything else is get up several times a night to go pee.

So it became a painful obstacle course.  Bashed my back, nearly tore my shorts, spent a lot of time wishing I had a pee bottle.

It felt like this.

Best of all - zero sleep.

Eventually, got off the train in Penang Malaysia.  Really close to Georgetown.  The place where I nearly died from Dengue Fever before.  Didn't want to go there.

Decided to go with my traveler mentor's advice and did some walking around.  For some odd reason there seemed to be only two hotels close to the train station - one was 'closed' and the other was some dilapidated crap that wanted the equivalent of twenty USD for a night.

What the fuck.

As I wandered around with my stuff, I took care to stop and rest occasionally as well as drink water.  I don't think it helped.  I was only out for an hour or two but that sun is merciless - especially when you are carrying all your stuff.

I eventually decided I'd just have to go sleep in disease central.

As I'm waiting for the ferry, I felt my blood pressure begin to plummet.  My hands and arms started shaking.  I managed to sit down and remove my kit.  There were a couple super friendly Spanish folks and a French guy there to keep an eye on me.  Tourists look out for each other - which is awesome.  My vision began to narrow.  There was a rushing in my ears.  I wanted to shit myself.

I concentrated on just breathing.

Eventually, I came out of it.  I'm thinking it was probably sun stroke, heat exhaustion or something like that.  I've no idea.

Passing out and shitting myself in the medically wildly overpriced Malaysia - not high on my 'to do' list.

The Spanish guy grabbed my computer bag and carried it for me.  I was hella grateful.

Eventually, we got to the ferry.  I started drinking water.  Whether it is Dengue or heat stroke, water and rest are the cure.  Water I could do but there was a bunch of walking that needed to be done yet.

For Logan's Voyage readers not from Earth, here is an example of water.  Note, if an Earth-man is dehydrated, complete submergence for an extended period of time will cure him completely of dehydration.

Since I knew the place pretty well after living (and nearly dying) there, I took them over to the row of cheap places to stay on "Love Street".  The locals don't seem to know that name but all of the tourists do.  Ask them if you need it.

Full.  Chinese New Year.  Amazing.

They weren't digging the accommodations, so they moved on.  I found a shameful nightmarish place that the room was nearly the same size as the bed for fifty ringgits.

By comparison, the place I'm staying now is sixty and still has an outdoor bathroom (that only parts work - plumbing is hard) and it is sixty.  It also reeks of cigarette smoke because they'd rather have people smoke in their rooms that in a hallway or something.  I've been told that for eighty I can get a 'reasonable' place.  Although spending close to twenty a night is annoying (and double what I want to spend) I might have to do it for a couple days till I find the cheaper places.

After checking into the room, I ended up falling asleep on the porch in an uncomfortable chair for a few hours.  Not sure how many - more than one, less than four.

Probably not me.

It surprised me how many people I saw there who recognized me.  Even the super old guy who runs the gangster bar said "Oh - you're back".  When he recognizes you... Well, you're probably an alcoholic.

One of my contacts there told me Dengue continues to plague the region.  Not so bad recently but a lot of tourists have fallen to it.  Pity there are no international laws to get people to fess up to this so they'd actually fix it.

Came across the Spaniards and insisted on buying them a drink there.  Carrying my bag was quite a lifesaver.

The next day was escape time.

But with less guns.

Booked a bus ticket at the place where I'd contracted Dengue from.   Oh, nostalgia!

Got picked up by a mini van which transferred us to a bus to get to the bus station where we caught the actual bus.   Seems like a lot of steps to me.

Once we got aboard the bus for Ipoh (heard it was around a four hour journey) I fell asleep.  Big time.  Out like a light.

Of course, it didn't drop me off at the bus station in town.  No, it was some 'new' bus station north of the city.  Great.  Paid thirty five ringgits (heard it was suppose to be thirty but the five foreigner tax I could live with) to get dropped off in the 'hotel area'.

One of the things I like about the USA is that if you have something on a sign, you must actually have that thing or you can get sued over 'false advertising'.  This is not the case in other places.  The hotel advertising a thirty ringgit room - no, their cheapest was a pretty horrible looking eighty.  I was given vague directions to a different place supposedly owned by the same company which might have such a room - no, I just left.

"Arguing with the dishonest will not make them honest." - Logan Horsford

Went to a different hotel which wanted fifty five.  "Do you have wifi?"  Oh no - we are just a hotel, they told me.  Indicating they felt such things as wifi would be way too fancy for them.  The one next door cost five ringgits more and has good wifi.   But smells as though smokers were having a 'fuck it, lets get cancer' party in here.

Got directed to a 'famous' noodle house.  The 'chicken rice' places (they have no other designation) are the most disorganized worst run establishments I've come across in SE Asia.  I asked if restaurants of this type have some sort of special name (restaurant doesn't seem appropriate) but was told they don't.

Here's how they work.  You go find a place to sit, usually sharing a table on simple plastic stools with other people.  If crowds freak you out, you'll run.  You must then somehow attract the attention of only specific people who are suppose to take your order.  If you get the wrong person's attention (though they are still wearing the restaurant's uniform) they will tell you 'not my job'.  The waiters are trained to not see you.  If you wear them down, they will come find out what you want.  You then wait for a different guy who brings around drinks of various types.  They may or may not charge you separately.   After a couple drinks, I gave up on the first place.  Went to the second - same sort of place.  Hated the food.  Paid, left.

Later, I discovered the restaurant literally across the street had better and cheaper food.  Wondered why I'd been sent a few blocks away.

And that's my first two days back in Malaysia.

Looking forward, I'm thinking that I'd like to stay in this town for at least a couple days.  I may have to upgrade to the more expensive hotel a lawyer I was chatting to recommended.  Not only would I like to see this town but I need to monitor my physical condition for a couple days.  Right now, I'm experiencing twitching, muscle pain and a bit of weakness.  Need to relax for a couple days I'm thinking.

Yeah.  The glamour of travel.



BOOK RANKINGS

Whether you like or hate the Goodreads site, I'm using it to keep track of what books I listen to.

My profile. Hopefully that will link it.

Fair warning: Most books get a 1/5 (they don't do /10 ratings) simply because if I don't like a book after listening to it for 1-60 minutes, I will move on trying to find a book that rates on my scale at least a 6/10 or higher. Life is too short for mediocre shit. Hence, if someone says "Oh, it gets better", I've found this to be (for me) usually not true. Every author knows the beginning of the book (and the 'hook') are vital. I have no time for authors that can't make the beginning grab me just a little bit.
Or readers whose voices I find annoying.

But, I know that some people like keeping an eye on which books I actually like and know that I am pretty frigging selective on what I actually finish.

So I'm putting up this link to my profile for those people.

Just to recap - I'm not interesting in giving all books a 'fair chance' - rather I am trying to quickly sort to find the best and give them my time.



PRICES (Malaysia, in ringgits)

Under 20:  Meal.
50:  Horrifying place to stay.
60:  Larger, though yet horrifying.
80:  Supposedly reasonable place to stay.
100:  This is too fancy for Logan to contemplate.